Our investigations have shown that the basic concepts in cognitive linguistics such as "construal" and "radial categories," are consistently valid in analyzing linguistic units at all levels- not only at word level but also at discourse level. Especially, it has been made clear that those concepts, together with their related concepts such as "frames" and "foregounding/profiling" are very effective in analyzing the processes in interpersonal conversations in which the meaning of a certain word may shift slightly and gradually as the discourse evolves among the participants, leading to serious misunderstanding among them. Our investigations have also made clear that the above-mentioned concepts in cognitive linguistics can explain in an integrated way the process of the emergence of meaning in text through constructionist processes by means of "counter discourses." These results of our investigations confirm the methodological effectiveness of these cognitive linguistic concepts in futu
… Morere cognitive pragmatics research.We assumed from the outset that especially in the case of highly abstract texts of philosophy the success of text understanding greatly depends upon the reader's ability to understand analogical and metaphorical expressions that appear in such texts. Upon this assumption the cognitive linguistic theory of analogy and metaphor has been investigated, and their functions in the understanding of philosophical texts have been elucidated. Our investigations have shown that almost all fundamental concepts of philosophy are originated in metaphors or analogies in some way. Although fundamental concepts of philosophy can be characterized as highly abstract, they are rooted in our concrete experiences, and they reflect some image-schemas that have emerged through our concrete body-experiences and sensory-motor patterns. For instance, the expressions of temporal relation, which are used in philosophical discussions, are highly abstract in their character. Such relations may be often expressed by means of spatial schemas in discussions of philosophers. In this case, spatial phenomena function as the "source-domain," and the "target-domain" is temporal relation. Our investigations have made clear that many philosophical concepts might have emerged from the metaphorical "mapping" in the history of thoughts. Less